• by Jon Last , Columnist, August 12, 2025

It’s August -- a time when the sports media vaults full throttle into football mode.

Of course, one could maintain that it is always football mode, and that’s a scenario that may only become more amplified after last week’s ESPN acquisition of several NFL media assets, in exchange for a 10% league equity position in the self-proclaimed “Worldwide Leader.”

The deal certainly raises concern that journalistic objectivity will go out the window when a media outlet covers an entity it has a significant financial interest in. Still, some have commented that ESPN has long been a public relations arm of the league.

I’m not going to be hypocritical. I’m a football fan who continues to harbor sour grapes that my beloved Tennessee Titans get no national love whatsoever, and the aforementioned sports network gave our #1 draft pick no more than a cursory amount of coverage, choosing instead to focus on a guy that didn’t get selected until the fifth round.

But the above rant about the blurring of church and state around the NFL is really just a means to assert that for many, August is a great time to be thinking about what I still refer to as America’s pastime.

And MLB’s pennant races are heating up. Attendance has risen around the league. It was nice to see a record 91,000 people fight the elements to attend an MLB game played in the middle of the Bristol Motor Speedway and the heart of America, two weekends ago.

As one who readily cheers for the underdog, I’m all in on Major League Baseball as it continues to be the little engine that could, while ESPN plays hardball (baseball metaphor) in exiting its MLB rights contract as it sings “Kumbaya” with the NFL. 

And lost in the NFL fanfare is the fact that MLB has truly been busting its tail to bring innovation and modernity to a game so steeped in tradition that marketers of the sport need to be ever so careful about not tarnishing its core while attempting to resonate with the next generation of fans.

Since implementing several rule changes aimed at speeding up the pace of the game, MLB has shaved nearly 30 minutes off the average start-to-finish time of a regular season contest. “The Mid Summer Classic” known as the All-Star Game again boasted higher viewership than those of other team sports.

Encouragingly, research that we conducted right after the game showed that 60% of fans truly enjoyed the Home Run “Blast off” tie-breaker, and that held true for the age 45-60 set as well as the under-35 demographic.

It’s easy to follow the “in crowd” and write off baseball as we set to exit summer’s dog days.  I’m not there yet, and neither should marketers who want to surround themselves with innovation and step away from the clutter.